Date: 2nd July 2023
Travelled: 120 kms from Pérouges to Hauterives
Visited: Vienne
Stayed: Hauterives RV, €10, N45.90570, E05.17530
Budget: 41 days @ €94 per day
My apologies the 2nd July was such a big day we decided on a second post for Vienne.
The GPS takes us around Lyon to Vienne. The traffic on the ring road is bad enough and it had been raining so where glad to be continuing south following the River Rhone away from Lyon.
Our Rough Guide (now 10 years old) highlights Vienne as once being a great Roman City from 100 BC to 300 AD. As a result its Saint Romain-en-Gal Museum is a highlight, so why not.
South of Lyon its refineries and industrial complexes and graffiti.
We cross the River Rhône at Vienne and find a parking place near the Muśee Gallo-Romain. To our surprise we find parking is free on Sundays. Better still when we walk across to the Museum we find it’s free the first Sunday of the month, Your’ve gotta love Sundays.
Armed with a somewhat long winded audio guide we wander the amazing displays of mosaic flooring and murals contained in the museum. When it comes to audio guides Pam and I prefer the abridged version, just give us the facts.
I’ll give you our abridged version. Vienne was the site of a Gallo-Roman city for 400 years, it was slowly abandoned as did the Roman Empire. In the late 1960 when excavating for an extension to a high school had commenced a section of Roman roadway was unearthed. From there the ancient city was slowly discovered.
Some 12,000 square metres of homes and buildings large and small have been uncovered. This includes some 400 mosaic flooring panels and murals.
Having spent an hour in the museum and another 30 minutes walking the excavation site, we decide to re-cross the Rhône and look at what else Vienne has to offer.
We follow the signs to the Cathédrale of Saint-Maurice which is pictured above. From there we continue up the hill to the Roman Theatre. Built in 100 AD with a seating capacity of 11,000 it was thought to be the largest in the Roman world.
Hard to get a descent photo as there is staging being built for a Jazz concert. It was apparently a complete ruin and what we see today was reconstructed in 1900. It’s interesting but maybe not worth the long walk up a steep hill in the late afternoon.
Tired and a bit foot sore we make our way back to the Hymer. Rather than stay in a car-park in Vienne we drive on to Hauterives, finding a spot in the shade at a aire de CC.
Michael + Pam
